Will Karen Lewis be the next mayor of Chicago?

posted at 6:41 pm on July 16, 2014 by Mike Antonucci

Speculation is running rampant that Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis will challenge her nemesis, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and take his job. It has only accelerated now that Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle has removed herself from consideration. Lewis reportedly created an unofficial exploratory committee.

(Lewis) trailed by only 3 points with white voters, led by 4 points with Hispanics, and led by 18 points with black voters—a margin that might increase if Lewis ran and black voters discovered that she, too, was black.

If Weigel has some evidence that black voters don’t know that Karen Lewis is black, he ought to present it to the rest of the world.

Lewis has serious weaknesses. She would be, almost by definition, a single-issue candidate running against a well-seasoned, if greatly disliked, machine Democrat. And last week’s AFT Convention demonstrated that her pull within her own union has been overestimated.

Nevertheless, voter emotion has carried many a challenger to victory over an entrenched incumbent, and teacher union officers often have electoral success at the local and state legislative level.

They fare less well in statewide or national elections, although the sample size is small. NEA’s new president, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, ran for Congress in 1998 against a very vulnerable one-term incumbent Republican and lost by 10 points. The Alabama Education Association’s powerful executive secretary Paul Hubbert ran for governor in 1990. He lost by four points to the incumbent Republican.

It probably wouldn’t be wise to bet on Lewis, but she has a puncher’s chance of toppling Emanuel. If she wins, she would be the first labor union president to hold such a high elected office, since, well, this guy.

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No. She will not. This woman has a LONG history of hateful, racist comments and support of communist ideals. Plus Rahm has $15 million in his campaign war chest to destroy her if she is foolish enough to declare.

We all said there was no way a hack like Barack Obama could get re-elected. Karen Lewis is a whole different level of awfulness, but she’s loud and black and has union support… and in Chicago, that means she’ll win.
Full disclosure: I live in Chicago, and have seen Lewis’–and Obama’s–careers unfold from the beginning.

No. She will not. This woman has a LONG history of hateful, racist comments and support of communist ideals. Plus Rahm has $15 million in his campaign war chest to destroy her if she is foolish enough to declare.

Warner Todd Huston on July 16, 2014 at 6:43 PM

The second item is an asset. You’re close enough to Chicago to know that.

And how much does the teachers’ union have? I submit they’d be able to put Emanuel’s $15 million warchest to shame.

Please, please let her be elected. It’ll be the best experiment ever to showcase the destruction caused by liberal policy.

Besides, her rants will be epic. She’ll make Rob Ford look sane, and Jeremiah Wright look like a humble Baptist preacher. I’m not so sure even Alan Grayson can hold a candle to her weapons grade stupidity.

For what it’s worth – Chicago is in bad financial straits. Illinois is in terrible financial straits.

Emanuel didn’t do much, but he was at least making an attempt to help put Chicago’s fiscal house in order. Lewis would be a financial disaster for Chicago, with no possibility of help from the state of Illinois.

In other words, the federal government would be called upon to bailout Chicago.

No. She will not. This woman has a LONG history of hateful, racist comments and support of communist ideals. Plus Rahm has $15 million in his campaign war chest to destroy her if she is foolish enough to declare.

Teachers union president and angry and black…?
She takes half the demographics right there before the race even starts.
Try winning an election in Chicago without the teacher’s union or black voters behind you.
Rahm is in trouble if she runs.

Gotta say these skin color distinctions are beginning to confuse. Dr King, the niece of MLK said on Huckebee that O and Holder are brown and do not strictly qualify as black and by implication do NOT represent black people.. She seems more credible than Lord Alinsky who is several shades lighter than John Boehner.

They deserve nothing less if they vote in this massive reptilian gastropod, but I’m surprised it’s taken this long for Chicago to finally meet it’s end after all these years of Democratic Demonic rule.

Let’s be honest. Chicago is never going to get better. It is only going to get worse. Until it collapses. There are not enough sane people, let alone Americans, in the place to hold it together. Illinois is unable to bail them out because they are just as deep in corruption and waste as Chicago. The United States, at best, is in decline and bankrupt. We are being invaded through our southern borders and the priority of the Federal government, over the welfare of any American citizens, is to welcome more invaders and give them all the benefits of citizenship, legal immunity, and none of the costs.

Go ahead and elect her. It won’t hurt the country any more than it is already hurting, and it will give the Leftists what they say they want; good and hard and repeatedly.

Hey, the Chicago schools are so good, their teachers union president should get an opportunity to lead Chicago in the same direction. Part and parcel of the destiny of American cities – doom. They are all on a continuum with Detroit, going down with the Democrat ship.

I was thinking that maybe it’s time for the good people of Chicago to at least try a Republican mayor even though the last one was a crook. The chances of getting anyone out of that city of either party who isn’t corrupt to run is probably nil, so, yeah, LIB.

Dave Weigel of Slate suggests the poll actually underestimates Lewis’s support, adding what seems to me to be an insulting evaluation of the city’s African-American voters:

(Lewis) trailed by only 3 points with white voters, led by 4 points with Hispanics, and led by 18 points with black voters—a margin that might increase if Lewis ran and black voters discovered that she, too, was black.

If Weigel has some evidence that black voters don’t know that Karen Lewis is black, he ought to present it to the rest of the world.

Weigel is a liberal RINO and I have no use for him. But give him his due … that line was hilarious. Lewis is a grotesque creature and almost nothing in her appearance suggests she is black. Jabba the albino Hut is my best attempt to describe her.

I remember that last year, or maybe the year before, when Chicago was holding a Veteran’s Day parade, Karen Lewis was rallying with the Marxists and Occupy idiots, surrounded by Communist flags.

Rahm Emmanuel is a corrupt pol, but probably not a communist. He is dragging Chicago even further into the dumpster, and the whole state of Illinois as well. Karen Lewis would finish the job, destroying what was once a great city and maybe the rest of the state.